Inside the NICHD:Dr. Pollack explains research on heavy metals and heart disease

NIH/Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development logo

GRAPHIC SLIDE:Anna Pollack, Ph.D.

Dr. Pollack on camera.

Dr. Anna Pollack: One thing that I've also worked on are biomarkers that may be related to cardiovascular disease risk, including CRP and homocysteine, and those are two biomarkers that we think are related to chronic disease risk, specifically cardiovascular disease. And there's been some work to suggest that cadmium and lead have been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. So, with my summer student last summer, we were interested in understanding whether or not, in healthy women, at low levels of exposure on the short term, were cadmium, lead, and mercury associated with increases in these biomarkers of cardiovascular disease risk. And what we found was that lead was—seems to be—associated with an increase in one of those two biomarkers. This is an ongoing project that we're still refining that work.

Camera Cut.

Dr. Pollack on camera.

Dr. Anna Pollack: It does seem to be that there is an association between some of these, some of these nonessential heavy metals and other pollutants and heart disease, which is a concern, because cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S.